Slide arrangements have been known for many years. Most of the devices have utilized various configurations to minimize the friction between the drawer and the drawer support.
In the prior art the slide arrangements have used rolling type bearing such as ball bearings as the primary method of reducing friction. Ball bearings were held in various socket arrangements. The socket arrangements being usually constructed of metal, resulting in a metal-to-metal contact between the socket and the ball. The supporting portion of the ball that projected from the socket would work against various arrangements. These arrangements included working against the drawer bottom or against the drawer support. However, the most common arrangement was to have the ball bearing work against a metal surface that was either flat or curved to provide a track for the bearing arrangement. Again, this still resulted in metal working against metal. Although this improved the function of the drawer in that it reduced friction, it required subsequent lubrication to be added to reduce the metal-to-metal friction. The lubrication, over time, would collect contaminants such as dust and require removal and replacement other prior art arrangements have utilized rolling type bearings such as roller bearings in similar structures and having similar disadvantages. Other slide arrangements placed the bearings inside of a wheel arrangement whereby the bearings, with their lubrication, would be separate and apart from the drawer or drawer support. This improved the problem of a greasy slide that would collect contaminants but did not entirely eliminate the problem. Further, such arrangements were usually designed to be mounted on the sides of the drawers thus reducing the usable width of the drawer opening. If sealed bearings are used to eliminate contamination of lubricated bearings in this type of arrangement, the cost effectiveness of such an arrangement became an issue.
Thus, there has long been a need for a slide arrangement which utilized a material to form the sockets for the bearings as well as provide a surface against which the bearings work that is "self lubricating". The self lubricating characteristic of the material can be supplied by choosing a material that has a characteristically low coefficient of friction.